Albert Kahn

Though he has been marginalized in most mainstream accounts of modern architecture, Albert Kahn (b. 1869–d. 1942) is increasingly considered one of the most important and consequential US architects of the 20th century. Kahn is known primarily for the technically innovative and rigorously functional factory buildings that his still-extant firm Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. (founded 1903) designed for automotive manufacturers, including the Ford Motor Company, but his firm was also responsible for hundreds of eclectically styled buildings for other purposes in Detroit, Michigan. Research and writing regarding Albert Kahn often requires considerable effort to disambiguation. Most importantly, Albert Kahn the man is far from a synecdoche for the firm he founded, Albert Kahn Associates, Inc., which employed upward of several hundred people at its height and is still in operation under the simplified Kahn moniker today. Some mid-20th century historians and critics substituted the inaccurate and often derogatory moniker “Albert Kahn Inc.” as name for the firm to suggest its alienated and impersonal nature. Albert Kahn’s siblings are also worthy of attention in their own right. Frequently mentioned in the extant literature are brothers Julius (b. 1874–d. 1942) who was a trained engineer, inventor and co-founder of the highly successful Trussed Concrete Steel Company; Moritz (b. 1880–d. 1939), who was also an executive of the Kahn firm pivotal in its operations in the USSR between 1929 and 1932, and occasionally Louis (b. 1885–d. 1945), who was a manager and executive in the Kahn firm. Views of Albert Kahn have served as a barometer for the intellectual climate in architecture culture since the early 20th century, indexing the relative importance of aesthetics, ethics, and technics. Studies of Kahn and his firm have, until recently, primarily focused on their contributions to industrial architecture and the influence of their early factory buildings on architecture culture at large. These studies often describe the give-and-take between assembly lines and the streamlined, pragmatic design of the buildings that encompassed them. An upsurge of recent attention to Kahn’s work has been oriented away from issues of design toward larger histories. Some scholars have addressed the shift toward large, integrated offices within the profession, for which Albert Kahn Associates was a groundbreaking exemplar. Others have addressed the ways Kahn served the growth of global enterprise, revealing that his marginalization from architectural history has effaced the willful complicity of US architects in compounding capitalist power and solidifying its ideology. These topics remain rich veins for future researchers.

Preface

This proceeding consists of the peer-reviewed papers from the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Better Tomorrow (SESBT 2021), which was organized by the School of Mechanical Engineering of Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai on July 23rd and 24th, 2021. For more details about SESBT 2021, please visit www.vitsesbt.com. However, due to the COVID 19 pandemic the conference was held Online. The main objective of SESBT 2021 is to provide a platform for researchers and technocrats from both academic institutions and industries to meet and share cutting-edge developments in the areas of sustainable energy and associated disciplines. This conference also provided an opportunity to exchange research evidence and innovative ideas and also the issues related to sustainable energy. This proceeding will include presentations on the latest research areas such as Carbon Neutrality, Electric & Hybrid Vehicles, Green and Energy Efficient Buildings, Sustainable Computing, Energy Storage, Computational Models for Energy Systems, Advanced Cryotechniques, AI in Energy Systems, Thermal System Optimization and Renewable Energy. The conference was inaugurated on July 23, 2021 by the renowned scientist, Dr. A.K. Tyagi, Associate Director (Chemistry Group), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai in the presence of Guest of Honour Dr. Santhoji Katare, Technical Leader and General Manager, Ford Motor Company, Chennai. International Chair, Prof. P.V. Aravind, Full Professor and Chair of Energy Conversion, University of Groningen, Netherlands, Prof. P.C. Sabumon, Dean Sponsored Research, VIT Chennai and Conference Chair, Dr. R. Sivakumar, Dean and Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, VIT Chennai also facilitated the ceremony. List of Sesbt 2021 - Committee Members is available in this pdf.

Sustainability Reporting Insights: The Case of Ford Motor Company

This case will help students comprehend the materiality concept within the context of sustainability reporting in the automotive industry. Students researching sustainable business reporting frameworks can use Ford Motor Company's sustainability report to understand how that firm assesses the materiality of sustainability issues and integrates sustainable development initiatives within its overall business strategy. Students will gauge Ford's sustainability performance and explore how the company and its peers assess the materiality of sustainability issues. They thus can assess the motivations and judgmental nature behind sustainability reporting and challenges facing preparers. Assignable on an individual or team basis, this case introduces important, and interesting, sustainability reporting concepts and issues. With increasing investor interest in sustainability factors, we argue that accounting programs should provide an overview of sustainability reporting to accounting majors. Because it focuses on disclosures relevant to investors and other stakeholders, we view Financial Accounting courses, including International Accounting courses, as the most appropriate opportunity to employ this case. However, we also adapted this case successfully in a Managerial Accounting course.

Systems of Male Privilege: The Industrial Relations Policies of the Ford Motor Company in the 1940s

This article examines the industrial relations systems constructed by Ford and United Automobile Workers (UAW) leaders for the Ford Motor Company in the 1940s. Ford’s industrial relations systems extended privileges to men and male-dominated groups to the detriment of their female counterparts and women seeking employment and advancement. Systemic male privilege was integral to Ford’s operations throughout conversion to military production for World War II and reconversion back to civilian production.

People Before Profit?

Focusing on the automobile industry in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, this article demonstrates how Ford Motor Company and General Motors challenged apartheid through adherence to the Sullivan Principles, while maintaining cordial relations with the capitalist South African government in the late-apartheid period. Designed to promote desegregation of the workplace and equal pay for equal work, the Sullivan Principles were a controversial code of conduct for US subsidiaries operating in apartheid South Africa. Leon Sullivan, an African American civil rights leader, unveiled the Principles in March 1977 with the support of US multinationals, including both Ford and GM. Drawing on archival sources from both the United States and South Africa, the author traces how these American multinational corporations did not sufficiently allay their workers' most pressing concerns, nor did they firmly challenge the South African government. The Principles’ shortcomings underscore the disconnect between the anti-apartheid movement’s calls for revolutionary transformation and the American business community’s focus on evolutionary change, thus highlighting the tensions between international capital and South Africa’s racialized labor relations.

On Top of the World, 1946–56

American unions and companies did not reach a grand accord after World War II, as many historians claimed in the 1960s and 1970s, nor did corporations continuously maneuver to undermine unions after the war ended, as labor historians began arguing in the 1990s. Relations were more complex than that. Compromises were reached at thousands of firms, mediated by the former staff of the National War Labor Board, whom companies and unions hired as their principals arbitrators. This chapters offers three illustrations: Harry Shulman at the Ford Motor Company, John T. Dunlop in the construction industry, and Sylvester Garrett in the steel industry. The compromises depended on slowly rising inflation in wages and prices, a factor that only a few of the intermediaries acknowledged.

The Soviet Auto Giant

This chapter examines how the Soviet Union strove to acquire American mass production technology in order to create their own version of Fordism in the 1930s. It traces the origin and operation of one of the prestigious objects of the First Five-Year Plan: the automobile factory at Nizhnii Novgorod. After 1933, when the city changed names in honor of its scion Maxim Gorky, the Soviet River Rouge went by the official name of Gaz (Gor'kovskii Avtomobil'nyi Zavod); but to the Soviet press, it was known simply as the “Auto Giant.” The chapter then follows four men who helped the Auto Giant awaken and rise. Economist Nikolai Osinskii pushed through an ambitious agenda for Soviet motorization that culminated in the foreign technical assistance contract with the Ford Motor Company of May 1929. In fulfillment of this agreement, Stepan Dybets traveled to Detroit and led a group of Soviet engineers who were in charge of transferring Ford technology and know-how from the Midwest to central Russia during the years of the First Five-Year Plan. Meanwhile, as director of Gaz between 1932 and 1938, Sergei D'iakonov oversaw the uneven and troubled implementation of Fordism during the Second Five-Year Plan. Finally, Ivan Loskutov ascended to the helm of Gaz after Stalin's purges, and presided over the factory's redoubled embrace of Fordism in the late 1930s and World War II.